but rumor has it
by irishais
Summary: Quistis Trepe came to Balamb College of the Arts to follow her dream of dance, but could rockstar-wannabe Seifer Almasy be her future? AU.
1. everyone's got a story to tell

_A/N: This is a rewrite of "throw your soul through every open door," which, frankly, needed it. Again, if you recognize the lyrics, I don't own the songs they belong to. If you want to listen to some of the music featured in this fic, visit my tumblr (irishais), and check the posts tagged "but rumor has it." Enjoy!_

* * *

**but rumor has it**

_-irishais-_

_One. _

Balamb College of the Arts was a strange, sprawling campus set a couple miles outside of the smallest town that Quistis Trepe had ever seen, and the first time that she set foot off the train from Deling City, she was half-tempted to get back on and leave.

But BSA was _respected_. Some of the best names in dance came from there, performers she had respected her entire life, even before she knew their names. Besides, it wasn't like there was anything waiting for her back in Galbadia, except four years in a shining, stellar law school and then the rest of her life in her father's firm, making money hand over fist. And being bored out of her _mind. _

Quistis would rather step in front of the next train than go back to that.

Her decision was what, two years and roughly three days later, found her lying awake in her narrow dorm bed, running through her routine for her winter showcase over and over again, the music piping in through her headphones. She could see the entire routine, exactly how she rehearsed it. The _entire _thing, except—

There was a blank spot, right in the middle.

The song stopped, and Quistis nudged the repeat icon on her cell phone, letting the melody start over again from the beginning, flowing through her headphones. She rolled on her side as the music built for the fourth time that night. Her alarm clock glowed midnight.

At 12:04, she gave up trying to _imagine _something in where nothing would fit, and flung aside her comforter; the rehearsal rooms were open all night, anyway, for insomniacs like her, tucked away in a separate wing where the sound of drumming or dancing or experimental guitar solos wouldn't interrupt the students who _could _sleep, or who were in their thirty-sixth hour of writing a thesis that was due tomorrow. She'd go down there, work it out. It wasn't like she was going to get any sleep at this rate.

She'd just dream, if she did close her eyes, and she was getting tired of that.

Quistis changed, quickly dressing in leggings and a leotard, shrugging on a cardigan over her shoulders. With her small gym bag slung over her shoulder, her pointe shoes, a CD with her music on it, and her phone tucked inside, Quistis slipped out of her room, into the shared living space.

The front door opened as she reached for the handle. Her roommate jumped at the sight of her.

"God," Xu said, slipping past her and dropping her purse onto the counter. "You scared the shit out of me."

What perfect timing. Quistis sighed, and forced a smile onto her face. "How was the party?"

Xu sighed. "Boring. Decent music, but Zell ate like twelve hotdogs and then said he was going to puke, so we had to leave."

"Quality."

"Yeah, but what can I say? He's mildly attractive."

Quistis snorted. "That's his only redeeming quality?"

"I'm sure there are others," Xu said noncommittally. "I just haven't had the chance to figure them out yet. Going somewhere?"

"Yeah, just to the studio. I need to figure out this dead spot in the middle of the routine."

"You need a second set of eyes?" Not that it would help, but it was nice of Xu to ask.

Quistis shrugged. "No, thanks. Don't you have that piece due tomorrow morning, anyway?"

Xu grinned. "I could play it in my sleep. It's not exactly difficult."

Quistis begged to differ, but she supposed Xu's attitude had something to do with the fact that she was the best violinist BCA had seen in a long time. She'd earned the right to boast.

"You might have to, if you don't hit the hay."

"Sure, _mom_," Xu teased. "Go, get out of here. I need my beauty sleep. I can't be a virtuoso with circles under my eyes."

Quistis laughed, and walked out into the silent halls.

_xx_

Seifer Almasy ran his fingers down the strings and climbed the alphabet back up again.

The chords echoed around the dance studio, and he liked the way they sounded, so he did it again. His battered music notebook was open next to him; Seifer picked up his pencil and scribbled a note in the margins.

The song was there, just out of his reach. He hated that feeling—it was keeping him up at night, fiddling in his dorm room, trying out chords and rejecting them, then adding new ones that sounded almost the same. The lyrics were meaningless right now, filler that he'd have to replace. He'd given up early tonight; after only a few hours, he'd hauled his guitar down to the one open recording studio. It had taken him twenty minutes in there, just screwing around, to realize it wasn't going to encourage _any _sort of productivity. It felt too—serious. He needed to relax.

The dance studio he'd found himself in, after some aimless wandering, was big, empty, close enough acoustically to the locked auditorium that he'd stolen a chair from the hall and had been in here ever since—when? Nine? Something like that.

Notes spilled out from under his fingers, formless, morphing into a song he already knew to a jingle from a commercial to something entirely different. He tried a passage three different times, in flat, in sharp, in just the minor chords. He hummed, he tapped his foot, he tried every trick in the book.

Nothing. Nothing solid.

He sang, snatches and fragments, lines picked out of dreams. The snippets had been lingering in his head for days now, waiting to be solidified in something more, but he was afraid that today was just not going to be that day.

_-the world is burning down _

_Around our heads, _

_And all I've got is you—_

The door to the studio opened with a faint hiss as it slid along its tracks. Seifer stopped. "Occupied," he called, absently.

"Sorry. I didn't realize anyone else would be in here." Some blonde girl stood there, a dance student by the looks of her, because who the hell else would want to use the studio at midnight? She hovered in the doorway, clutching the strap of her beige bag.

Seifer made a sweeping gesture, encompassing himself and his guitar. "Obviously."

"Sorry," she repeated. "It's just that… this is the dance studio."

"Whatever," he interjected. "It's fine. I'm done here." Three hours, and he'd accomplished exactly shit.

"Are you sure?"

"All yours." Seifer slipped his guitar strap over his head and set the instrument carefully in its hard case, snapping the latches.

"Thanks." She nodded toward his guitar case. "You're pretty good."

"I thought you said you didn't know anyone was in here." He smirked; she blushed. Seifer briefly entertained the notion of introducing himself, and decided against it. She was pretty, but in that uptight way that meant she was probably a crazy person. He'd dated enough of the dancers in this school to realize that pretty early on. "Good luck."

"Thanks. You, too." She crossed the room quickly to the CD player sitting on a single desk, near the chair he'd commandeered, and withdrew a case from her bag. When she hit play, classical music poured out of the speakers. She stretched, without self-consciousness. It took him a second to realize that he was staring. Seifer shook his head.

_Get yourself together. _

He left, and was halfway down the hall before he realized that he'd left his notebook sitting on the floor. Seifer turned around, heading back for the room.

He stopped in the doorway.

The girl was dancing, beautiful, sinuous movements that looked like she should be performing in some professional company or something. She did some sort of spin, crazy complicated, and stumbled right at the very end, swearing silently under her breath and reaching down to her right ankle.

"You okay?" he asked. She glanced up, sharply, surprised to see him there.

"Fine. I thought you'd gone."

"Forgot my notebook," he said. "Sorry."

"It's fine."

He crossed the room to the chair, and there it was, still sitting open where he'd left it. Her bag was on the seat, her blue cardigan tossed over it. He wondered if she'd looked at the music at all, and then sternly asked himself why the hell he should care.

Seifer shut the book, and shoved his pencil in the wire binding.

"Have a nice night," he told her, but the girl didn't really respond. He left again.

_xx_

_Don't want to think about it,_

_Every single one's got a story to tell, _

_Everyone knows about it—_

He had a stranglehold on the microphone, belting the lyrics out from his _core_, Irvine backing him up on a wailing electric guitar. Their instructor watched them with a critical eye, tapping her pen against the clipboard in her lap, keeping better time than most metronomes.

Rinoa Heartilly sat three rows back, a smile on her painted lips, and Seifer caught her eye for half a second. She winked at him, her lips moving, mouthing along with the words. Irvine carried the song into its final stanza; Seifer counted off the beats. This beat the _shit _out of the community college in Balamb.

_All the words are gonna bleed from me, _

_And I will sing no more, _

_And the stains coming from my blood, _

_Tell me go back home._

The classroom erupted into applause as the song wound down. The instructor nodded, looking down at her notes.

"Good, guys. Seifer, don't stretch the vocals so far—you need to rein it in. Tighten it up and be ready to do it again next week."

"Sure," he said. "Okay."

Instructor Willow shuffled through her critique sheets and settled on the next name on the list. "Nida," she called. "You're up."

A skinny, mousy boy got up out of his chair, nearly tripped over his fiddle case, and Seifer ceded the stage to him with a brief, sarcastic bow, and then returned to his seat.

"I thought it was hot," Rinoa whispered.

"Rinoa," Instructor Willow warned. "Pay attention."

His girlfriend brushed her fingers against the back of Seifer's shoulder, and he settled back in his chair with a grin at the corner of his lips, lacing his hands behind his head.

_xx_

She danced, moving in a dizzying series of _emboites_, her turns sharp, the jumps solid.

"Higher," Instructor grieves called. "Don't be afraid to _push._"

She leaped again, again, again. The music was a thunderous drumbeat, pulsing in her veins. She _was _pushing herself, as hard as she could, her legs burning with the effort. The dance studio had never seemed so large; it took an eternity to get to the other side.

She stumbled, just a hair, on her final landing, with enough of a twinge in her ankle to make her lurch toward the barre, holding fast to the wood as she gasped with the exertion. Her reflection was red-faced, sweaty; she would murder for a shower. She might have to, judging by the crowd of dancers waiting near the door.

"Better," Grieves told her, but the instructor's attention diverted from Quistis to the other dancers so quickly that she may as well have not said anything at all. Quistis sighed, wiping the sweat off of her face with the back of her hand, shoving a few rogue strands of hair back behind her ear.

Not soon enough, the bell rang.

"Good work, everyone."

Quistis applauded briefly with the rest of the class, out of reflex and respect for her fellow students. She had expected something more from this class—Grieves was a top name in the field, one of the best instructors at Balamb. Quistis had been _so _excited to gain one of the spots in this class, expecting solid critique and instruction.

Instead, she got… nothing. It was baffling compared to the instruction that she had received in Deling City's dance academy. _No wonder the routine isn't coming together, _a snide voice whispered in her head. It was impossible to catch Grieves for five minutes to talk about _anything_, much less about a life-changing performance like her winter showcase routine. All of the major companies would be there, waiting to offer jobs and careers and _futures_ to a very few select dancers.

At this rate, she would be stuck among the library stacks at Deling University with a stack of legal texts a mile high before she could _fouetté_. Quistis slipped through the crowd of dancers near the entrance to the locker rooms, spun her lock combination in twice, because it _never _worked the first time, and yanked her bag out, changing her shoes for a pair of worn-in flip flops. She shrugged a loose knit top over her head, deciding it wasn't worth a potential battle royale to get to the showers in the locker room, and walked out. She didn't have another class until after lunch, anyway.

Quistis took the shortcut through the quad. Her dorm room was quiet; Xu was nowhere to be found. Good. She wasn't really in the mood to talk to anyone. The shower went from freezing to vaguely warm, about as good as it got, and Quistis stripped, stepping under the spray. At least the water pressure eased some of the knots out of her shoulders and back; her ankle thrummed, just a bit, as she rocked up on her toes to get her shampoo off of the rack. It would be fine. It always was, after some ice and rest and a handful of aspirin.

It would be _fine. _


	2. we are never, ever getting back together

_two. _

The cafeteria was loud. It shouldn't have surprised her at this point; it was _always _loud. Crowded, too; it took ten minutes to get through the line (a record, all things considered.) Quistis swiped her ID card in exchange for her salad and bottled water, and carried her tray to the first table she could find, not bothering to seek out Xu amongst the hordes of people. Her roommate had said she was going to lunch, but as far as Quistis was concerned, Xu could find _her. _

The table she snared was small, shoved away in a corner, and she set her tray down just narrowly ahead of a guy making a beeline for it, deliberately ignoring him as she peeled the foil off of the top of her salad.

"Shit, please tell me you're eating alone."

"I was planning on it," she said bluntly, and glanced up. "Oh—it's you."

Her intruder snorted. "Not the usual reaction I aim for, but I'll take it. You mind if I sit down? As payback for spying on me last night, of course."

He pulled out the chair before she could say no, setting his guitar case down on the floor and sprawling out in the chair. His tray was a mass of food, more than one human being could possibly eat in a single sitting—she would never understand the metabolism of the male species. She'd stopped trying long ago.

There was a brief moment of silence in which he emptied four packs of ketchup onto the edge of his paper plate, and swirled a fry around in the mess.

Quistis could feel her cheeks redden, and she sputtered, "I was not spying. I was going to use the _dance_ studio. That you happened to be using for your… jam session."

"Better acoustics," he said, unwrapping a burger that made Quistis feel like her arteries were shrinking in sympathy for his. "The least you could've done was tell me your name."

His gaze was a vivid green, and his eyelashes were startlingly dark, a sharp contrast to his blonde hair; she felt pinned beneath his look. Quistis held his eyes with her own.

"You never told me yours. Why would I tell you mine?"

He looked down with a smirk at the edge of his mouth, inspecting the burger, plucking out a good portion of the lettuce and half the tomato. "Touché. Seifer Almasy, resident dance studio-crasher."

He wiped off his fingers on a napkin and held out his hand. She shook it, briefly; his palm was warm against hers, his grip firm.

"Quistis," she responded. "Quistis Trepe."

Seifer repeated her name, drawing it out until it sounded like music. "A pleasure, I'm sure." He took a bite of his hamburger, and Quistis glanced down, peeling the wrap off of her plastic fork. The lettuce wasn't quite up to par, vaguely wilted. She took a couple of cursory bites, and decided against it.

"See, you can't really screw up a burger," Seifer said, watching her shove the salad away.

Quistis shook her head. "They slather those in fat and grease, and I need my heart to actually _work_."

Seifer shrugged. "Mine works just fine."

"Well, good for you."

He snorted. "Wow, you're defensive. Are you always that uptight or is today just a shitty day?"

Quistis sighed, screwing off the lid of her water. At least someone around here was willing to be honest with her, even if he was a total asshole within five minutes of her knowing him. "Not that it's any of your business, but yes. That would be an accurate description."

His long fingers popped the tab on his can of soda; it fizzed, exhaling carbonation, and he lifted it to his mouth. He had a musician's hands; she realized that she was staring, and looked away quickly.

"Let me guess…"

"No," she said. "I'd prefer it if you—"

"Hey, just because some instructor's being a jerk, doesn't mean you have to take it out on total strangers."

"Sorry," she said automatically, and kicked herself mentally for apologizing to this jerk. "Like I said. Bad day."

"No worries." He set down the can of soda, and looked over her shoulder. "Oi!" he yelled, and held up his hand. Quistis turned; there were two people pushing their way through the crowded caf toward them, a short, tiny white-haired girl and a burly darker guy. She recognized the girl, sort of.

"Where were you, dude? We were lookin' for you, ya know?"

"You know this place sucks. I had to practically grovel for this chair," Seifer said, with a conspiratorial glance at Quistis. She wasn't entirely sure how to respond.

"Starving," the small girl said, and stole a handful of fries off his tray.

"Get your own," he told her, but there was no malice in his tone. Obviously, these were his friends.

"Come on, man, we got the studio for two hours, and if we're late, they're gonna pass it on to the next people."

Seifer pulled out his phone, glanced at it, and swore. "Shit. See you around," he said to Quistis, picking up his tray.

"Bye," she said, but he and his friends were already gone.

_xx_

It was Raijin who stated the obvious:

"She was hot. Do you know her?"

Seifer slid his ID card through the reader, and the recording studio's door unlocked. "Not really. I just ran into her the other night. Some dancer."

"Had class with her," Fujin said. "Performance 101. Pretty good."

"Really good," Seifer said absently, flicking on the lights and setting his guitar case down. "Track six," he called, tapping on the glass partition that divided him from the sound room. Raijin glanced up, sliding big head phones over his ears and gave him a thumbs up.

"You like her?"

He raised an eyebrow at Fujin. "I just _met _her. And besides, what would Rinoa say?"

"Still." She leaned against the door and crossed her arms, her eyebrow raised.

Seifer laughed, shaking his head, and settled on the chair in the middle of the studio. He put his headphones on, gave Raijin a thumbs-up, and the music started playing.

_xx_

Two days later, Quistis flat-out _ran_ to her music history class, her notebook shoved under her arm and her ID card flapping on the lanyard around her neck. She could run a five minute mile, easily, but the whole _running _thing became much harder in a hallway crowded with students.

She'd spent the past two hours going over the intro to her showcase dance, and she hadn't _meant _to get that distracted by it, but suddenly she looked up, and it was five minutes to four. Instructor Shang loathed tardiness—if she didn't make it, she might as well skip it.

Quistis rounded the corner, grabbing for the door just as someone else yanked it open, their arm over her head. She ducked inside, and glanced over her shoulder.

_Are you _kidding _me?_ She'd never seen him before the other day, and now it was like he was everywhere—the caf, the quad, the damn _library_, when she went to work on an essay in peace and quiet, and he was there, reading some book on Estharian philosophy.

Seifer grinned at her. "After you."

"I didn't know you were in this class."

"I just transferred into this section," he said, following her up the stairs; the desks were arranged stadium-style, long tables with a dozen chairs per row. Quistis slid into a chair near the end of the middle row; Seifer dropped his backpack onto the table next to her.

"Are you stalking me, or something?"

"No," he snorted. "Our instructor went on maternity leave, so all the majors got transferred. Your lucky day, I guess."

Quistis sighed, and flipped open her notebook. She dug through her bag for a pen, and came up empty.

"Do you have a pen?"

"Here." He handed her a battered green-barreled one; when she wrote the date in the upper right corner of the blank page, it wrote blue.

"Thanks," she whispered.

"Something to share with the rest of the class, Miss Trepe?" Instructor Shang asked.

She felt the heat rise to her cheeks almost immediately. "Um. No, sir?"

"Then you don't mind if I get started, do you?"

"No, sir." She looked back down at her notebook; beside her, she could hear Seifer laughing under his breath.

_Jerk._

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye after a while, while Shang was droning on about the evolution of pop-punk culture; Seifer's profile was strong and angular, his eyelashes impossibly long—why was it that she had to wear six coats of mascara to get hers to look _anything _close to that? He was focused on Shang's words, scrawling notes in a looping hand.

She had to admit, that even though he was, yes, still a jerk, he was a moderately handsome one. Quistis exhaled a tiny sigh, and turned her attention back to the class.

_xx_

"He has a girlfriend," Xu said casually, watching Quistis pace in the narrow confines of her bedroom. "Just so you know."

Quistis stopped, mid-step. "I beg your pardon?"

"Seifer Almasy. The guy you've been obsessing about for the past five minutes."

"We weren't _talking _about Seifer Almasy." Not that she could recall, anyway.

Xu shrugged. "You have literally spent the past five minutes wearing a path into the rug. You give me a convincing reason why you've been doing that, and I'll recant my theory."

"I'm worried about my _routine_."

"Then go work on it."

"I don't _want _to go work on it. I have a ton of studying to do."

"Then study. Or let's go get coffee, already, and you can at least obsess while I caffeinate."

Quistis sighed and sat down on her bed, picking up her shoes and slipping them onto her feet. "Who's he dating?"

Xu grinned. "I _knew _it. Rinoa Heartilly."

"I don't know her."

"Oh, you'd know her if you saw her—long dark hair, walks around like she owns the place? She's a vocals major. Her mom was Julia Heartilly."

Now _that _was a name she knew. "Seriously?"

"Yep." Xu slugged her gently in the shoulder. "So you've got some stiff competition."

Forget competition. She didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell against the daughter of a famous singer. What she _needed _to do was forget about Seifer Almasy entirely; he was a distraction. She had enough to deal with without distractions.

"Coffee," she decided. She would do better with some espresso in her. "Let's go."

Xu hopped off the bed, following her out of the room.

_xx_

Balamb's tiny student-run café shared a wall with the cafeteria, and yet, when entered, it was a completely different atmosphere. Arty, really; student work hung on the walls, anything from self-portraiture to photography to a small television that broadcast a loop of performance art pieces. There were ten booths in an L around the walls, and six small tables with four chairs at each. There were three computers crammed into a corner, and the coffee bar took up the back wall entirely. Near the door, an open space had been cleared away in lieu of a stage—there was a hideous square of green carpet, two stools and two microphone stands.

It was nearly empty at this hour—they could hear the raucous noise of the late dinner crowd next door as they walked up to the counter.

"It's open mic night tonight," the barista told them. "Grab a table while you can, because it's gonna be packed in like, ten minutes."

"Who's playing?" Xu asked.

The barista pulled out a sheet from under the register. "A couple of juniors—Seifer Almasy, Rinoa Heartilly, and then some band from the freshman class that actually doesn't suck."

When Xu glanced over at her, her grin was a cheshire smile. "Sounds good," she said smoothly, and paid for the drinks before Quistis could object.

Xu selected a table with supposed indifference; when Quistis sat, she found it gave them a perfect view of the performing area.

"Oh, come on," Xu said, "I just want to see if he's any good."

"If you do anything weird, I'm going back to the room."

"I'm always weird," Xu said. "That's why you love me."

"I recant any previous declarations of love, because obviously I was drunk. You're insane." Quistis sighed, and sipped her latte.

Slowly, according to the barista's predictions, the coffee shop started to fill up with students. Xu dropped her bag onto the empty chair at their table, discouraging anyone from asking if it was occupied.

They heard Seifer before they saw him, arguing with a dark-haired girl as they pushed their way through the crowd.

"—told you, that's completely untrue. I don't know who told you that—"

"Selphie told me," the girl shot back, "and I'm pretty sure I can trust her _word." _

_xx_

"Her word? Over mine?" Seifer said. "Because I'm pretty sure that Tilmitt wasn't even _there_."

"She was. She knows what she saw," Rinoa hissed, as they approached the small performing area. "And since you don't have a _reasonable _explanation—"

"Nothing _happened!_" Seifer exclaimed, in frustration. The entire walk from the dorms, they had been having this argument. It was _exhausting_; it wasn't the first time that she'd accused him of something similar. He set his guitar case on the stool near one of the microphones, and flipped the latches.

"You know what? I can't do this anymore. I can't trust you, obviously."

He stopped, his fingers wrapped around the neck of his guitar. "What?"

"This. Us."

He'd always imagined this conversation going a different way. Funny. "Fine. Let's just get this thing over with, and you can do whatever the hell you want, afterward."

"Fine," Rinoa snapped, dropping her handbag on top of his case, some ridiculous, hideous thing that looked like she'd skinned a children's cartoon character for it. "But I'm not singing that stupid song with you."

"_Fine_," he snarled. He sat down on the stool and slung his guitar strap around his head, settling his fingers on the strings. The whole audience had their eyes on them, and for the first time in a long time, he didn't care. He picked out the first few bars of a song, and Rinoa sighed, flipping her hair over her shoulder. Let her stew. He didn't care.

He leaned into the microphone, disregarding the usual practice of introductions.

_I remember when we broke up, the first time_

_Saying, "this is it, I've had enough," cause, like, _

_We hadn't seen each other in a month, _

_When you said you needed space—what?_

Rinoa sighed, loudly, into the mike, and sang the next verse, her voice strong and clear and _bitter _as hell.

_Then you come around and say, _

"_Baby, I miss you and I swear I'm gonna change, trust me." _

_Remember how that lasted for a day?  
I say, "I hate you," we break up, you call me, "I love you." _

Seifer rolled his eyes at her pandering to the audience, his fingers rolling down the chords. He hated this song—it was one of her favorites, and they'd rehearsed it so many times he would know the lyrics for the rest of his damn _life—_

_Ooh, we called it off again last night, _

_But, oh, this time, I'm telling you, I'm telling you…_

_We are never, ever, ever getting back together—_

"Like, ever," Rinoa said sarcastically, into her mike. The audience laughed; Seifer scowled. Whatever. Let her be like that.


	3. must be the season of the witch

_three. _

"Wow," Xu said, stirring the remnants of her coffee in her cup. "They're really good. You'd actually think they hated each other."

Quistis watched them—Rinoa's eyerolling and the set of her jaw when she wasn't singing, and Seifer's defensive posture, his fingers looking like he was going to strangle his guitar, and said, "I don't actually think they're acting."

She'd thought so, originally, because the song was so appropriate, but now, she wasn't entirely sure. The audience was laughing, clapping along, enjoying every second of it, and when the last notes had wound down, Rinoa Heartilly snatched up her purse and stormed out of the café.

There was an awkward silence; in the wake of it, Seifer slid off of his stool and followed her, calling, "Rin—"

"Well," Xu said, finishing off her drink. "That was… unexpected."

Quistis nodded, watching him go.

_xx_

This was utter _bullshit_.

He walked back into the café, aiming for his guitar case; the crowd had thinned, just enough that he didn't get as many stares as he was anticipating. Still plenty of them, though, people whispering as he walked by. It didn't bother him, not really. He was just pissed that Rinoa had done this so _publicly_. There was a glint of blonde hair out of the corner of his eye—when he turned to look, Quistis Trepe was staring right at him. She waved with the tip of her fingers. Great.

Seifer inclined his head in Quistis' direction, and turned to the case, setting his guitar inside of it and then flicking the latches closed.

The other girl sitting at her table whispered something to Quistis, got up, and left. She shrugged, and glanced back at him.

He didn't think too much about why he did it, just dropped his case next to the newly vacated chair and sat down.

"Hi," she said.

"Hey. Who was that?"

"My roommate. She had to go work on a... paper."

_Right. _"Oh. Cool."

Quistis shrugged. There was a long period of silence. She turned the paper cup in her hands, looking at him over the rim of her thin glasses, her blue eyes soft in the dim lighting of the cafe. "So," she said, finally, "that was really good—right up until the end."

"She's always been a drama queen," Seifer said with a shrug. "I'm not surprised."

There was an awkward pause; he watched her fingers skate over the plastic lid of her coffee cup. "Is she your girlfriend?"

"Yeah—" Wait. No. Not anymore. "Was." Since Rinoa had made that very abundantly clear when she'd turned around and told him to go screw himself in front of half the student body.

"Oh. I'm sorry."

Seifer shrugged again. "It's probably been a long time coming. She's fine for like, a month, and then out of nowhere, I've offended her moral sensibilities. She thinks I made out with some girl she knows at a party last week. Her roommate apparently _just_ decided to bring this up."

"Did you?" Quistis asked, and her tone was mostly casual.

Seifer looked straight at her, catching her gaze and holding it. "No. I didn't. I'm not sure why she thinks I'm that much of a creep. I'd never do that, not to her. I don't get why she can't understand that."

"She sounds like a delightful girl," Quistis said wryly, and looked up quickly. "Sorry. That was rude."

He snorted. "Don't apologize. She's actually pretty cool, when she's not storming out of coffee shops." There was a napkin on the table; he plucked at the corner of it. "I just don't think we ever really hit the same wavelength, you know?" Rinoa had approached him at Irvine's party last semester with an extra beer in her hand and legs that went on for days; he wasn't about to say no to a gorgeous woman plying him with alcohol, who actually turned out to be funny and interesting and smart as hell-

He flattened his palms against the chipped laminate table.

"How long were you guys going out?"

"Since February. Not very long." Too long. Forever. Funny; she was the only girl he'd ever stayed with over a summer vacation.

Quistis nodded, as if she were filing away this information somewhere important. "Oh." She kept spinning the cup in her hands; her fingernails were painted pale peach. He had no idea why this stuck out to him so much, or why he'd even noticed it in the first place.

Seifer chalked it up to temporary insanity, and nodded toward the cup in her hands, obviously empty. She hadn't raised it to her lips once. "You want another one of those?"

"What?"

"Coffee. You want another one?"

It caught her off-guard; he wondered what the hell she was thinking about that got her so distracted, so easily. "Oh, um. Sure."

"Anything crazy?" Rinoa had been a huge fan of six gil lattes that put a serious dent in his bank account. _Just think of all the money you're going to save, _he told himself. But it didn't stop the fact that it still hurt, somewhere in his chest. Just the other _day_, they'd been fine, splitting a pizza in her dorm room and not watching some horrible movie she'd rented. And now she had ditched him, because of some rumor.

"No, just plain."

He stood. The line was short, and it didn't take him long to get a pair of coffees. He held one out to her. "Here."

"Thanks," she said, surprise in her voice as she took the cup. "You didn't have to do that."

"No big deal." Seifer pulled the lid off of his drink and emptied a pack of sugar into it, swirling the cup to mix it in. He snapped the lid back on, and took a sip. The warmth relaxed him, millimeters at a time. The caffeine helped.

"So, you're actually pretty good at this whole… music thing," Quistis said eventually, and he thought she might be blushing. Seifer laughed.

"Thanks." He'd spent enough money on this damn degree that he hoped he would be at least reasonably talented by now. But Quistis' compliment improved his mood by a few degrees. She was surprisingly easy to talk to. "So," Seifer said, wanting to change the subject from his now defunct love life to _anything _else. "What are you in here for? Painting? Acting? Weird performance art?" Not to knock Fujin's major or anything, but he didn't pretend to understand half the shit she did.

She tucked an errant strand of golden hair behind her ear. "Ballet."

"Thought so."

"Why?" she asked, and her tone was oddly challenging. Whoa.

He held up his free hand in surrender. "Calm down, I just meant you look like a dancer. And I did _see_ you doing some crazy dance things the other night."

She laughed, a little. "I'd forgotten."

"No, you didn't. You're not bad, you know." She was better than not bad, she was _amazing, _the way her hands flowed and her legs bent and how she _moved. _

_Stop it_, he told himself sternly.

Her smile was very, very pretty. "Well, thank you."

"Sure, sure."

Quistis peeled at the edge of the cardboard sleeve around her cup. "Did you ever get that song figured out?" she asked. "The one you were messing around with?"

His phone buzzed before he could answer, and Seifer pulled it from his pocket. The display read _Rinoa. _Seifer sighed, and hit the ignore icon; the call went to voice mail. She wanted to break up with _him_; he was pretty sure that she wasn't supposed to be calling him forty minutes later. That wasn't exactly how this was supposed to work.

The phone beeped, letting him know that he had a new message. Seifer deleted it without listening to it.

"If you need to take that, or something…" Quistis began, but he shook his head.

"No, it's nothing important." Seifer put his phone away. "Hey, uh, you want to go for a walk or something?"

The cardboard sleeve came away with a faint tearing noise. Quistis picked it up off of the table. "Okay," she said.

_xx_

"I have to drop this off first," Seifer said by way of explanation, as they headed toward the rotunda, holding up his guitar. "If that's cool."

Quistis nodded; it didn't really matter to her. It wasn't like she had anywhere pressing to be, and tomorrow was Saturday, anyway. If she ended up in the studio at midnight again, so be it. "Sure. That's fine."

They walked down the dormitory hall, and made a left, heading toward the men's wing. Seifer halted, abruptly. She stopped herself just before she ran into him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded to someone ahead of them.

Rinoa Heartilly was leaning against a door plastered with show advertisements and band stickers, her mascara running down her cheeks in streaks. "I tried to call you."

"I was busy," Seifer said. "What do you want?"

She looked around him, at Quistis. "God," she said. "We haven't even been broken up for an hour, and you're already seeing someone else."

"She's my _friend_," Seifer snapped. "Again, what do you _want_?"

"I should go—" Quistis started, but Seifer shook his head.

"No, don't worry about it. It's fine." He glared at Rinoa. "She was just leaving."

Rinoa pushed herself off of the door and walked toward him with open arms. "I wanted to apologize. I shouldn't have said those things. I'm sorry, baby." She reached for him, fingers outstretched, and Quistis could see how someone could fall for her, so easily. Even with her makeup a mess, Rinoa Heartilly had that sort of allure.

Seifer took a step back, out of her reach, holding his guitar case in front of him like a shield. "No, you're not."

She stopped, and raised her eyebrows. "Yes, I am."

Seifer laughed, a dire sound. "No, you really aren't. I'm _tired_ of this, Rin. We're done. Really."

"Oh." Rinoa stopped, crossed her arms, and glared at him. "You can't be serious."

He nodded. "Yeah. I actually am. You dumped me, remember? Like, an hour ago? _Onstage_? In front of like, forty people?"

This was not going to end well, Quistis realized.

"I _told_ you, I'm _sorry_!"

"Yeah, no." Seifer shrugged. "You can't just keep dropping people and picking them back up whenever you want, Rin. It doesn't work like that."

Rinoa's lip quivered. "Fine," she said quietly, and shoved between them. "He's a shitty lay," she added, much louder, directing the comment at Quistis. "Just so you know."

"Classy," Seifer called after her. "_God_." He rolled his eyes, and pulled his student ID out of his pocket, sliding it into the door lock. "Sorry you had to see that. And… sorry for what she said to you."

"It's okay," Quistis said automatically. His dorm was identical in layout to hers—a small kitchenette, tiny living area, a table cluttered with junk, two doors leading to different bedrooms. One was tightly closed, the other was ajar, but the light was off, and she could see nothing inside.

Seifer sighed. "I was kind of expecting her to do that."

"Did you love her?" As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to take them back, startled by her own brazenness. Seifer looked back over his shoulder at her, a strange look on his face.

"What?"

"I mean, it's not really any of my business, but she seems pretty beat up about it." Quistis stood near the counter, looking down at the glossy music magazines spread across its surface. She touched the cover of one, running her fingers across the address label in the lower corner. "You guys must have been pretty serious."

"I don't know," Seifer said. "Maybe." His response was carefully neutral. She shouldn't have said anything. "I'll be right back," he added, and crossed the room to the open door, flicking on the light. She caught a glimpse of a wall plastered with posters, so much more lively than her ascetic room, where all she had for decoration was a small bulletin board with old recital brochures, and one huge framed print of the poster from the Deling City Ballet summer tour she had been in just this past July. Nothing else, but school books and leotards and laundry she'd been meaning to do for a week.

Quistis itched to move closer to the door, to get a better look, but restrained herself.

"Hey," he called. "If she says anything else to you, could you let me know? I don't want her harassing you or something."

"I don't think she would do anything."

"I don't either, but, still. Rinoa's—unpredictable."

Quistis was beginning to notice that. There were a cluster of photos stuck to the refrigerator—she slipped around the counter to examine them more closely. They were an eclectic group of shots, strangely lit, some half-blurred with the excitement of the photographer or the poor lighting conditions. Seifer on stage, Seifer singing into a microphone, mugging to a crowd, a close up of his hands on his guitar… Seifer and the two people she'd seen in the caf, his friends, obviously, mugging for the camera against an ocean backdrop, on Dollet's boardwalk, in front of Balamb's gates.

There was one of those tacky film booth strips, four black and white shots of Seifer and Rinoa, smiling, making dumb faces, kissing at almost the right time.

Quistis looked away from the pictures as Seifer emerged from his room, pulling a blue BCA hooded sweatshirt over his head. "Are these your friends?" she asked, pointing toward the shot set by the sea.

"Yeah, Fujin and Raijin. I've known them forever." He didn't elaborate- she hadn't expected him to. "You need to grab a jacket or anything?"

Quistis looked down at her oversized cardigan. "I'm probably fine," she said. "Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be." He held the door for her, and she walked out into the hall.


	4. ruthless gravity

_four._

_She dances, balanced beautifully on the tip of her pointe shoes, feeling the air move around her in dizzying waves, and she is doing it, exactly as they have told her to, precise, sharp, thirty-two fouettés in a row, faster, _faster_, Quistis, you need to be sharp, perfect, yes—better. _

_She spins, a music box doll in black feathers and tulle and lace. She spins, she spins. _

_This is it, this is her moment, this is everything she has ever wanted, and more. Thirty, thirty-one—_

_Her leg buckles, and she falls, grabbing at air and coming up with her hands empty._

_The stage is hard under her arms; get _up_, they hiss at her, get up, Quistis, get up—_

_The pain is blinding, and her cry is what sends the curtain sailing down. _

_xx_

She moved her way through the first ninety seconds of her routine, exactly the way she has rehearsed it, her fingertips gracefully flowing through the air, her legs strong and solid, her poses textbook perfect.

She sensed the eyes of the class on her; she leapt, landed, reached for them, drew back, sank into a graceful folded position on the floor, her leg out in front of her, her toes flexed. She held the pose for a few seconds, and then fluidly drew herself back up to her feet.

The applause came in a brief burst. Quistis gave a brief curtsy.

"I'm intrigued," Instructor Grieves said finally, "but I think it lacks… something. I don't think there's quite enough passion in there yet. You're holding back, Quistis. Figure out why."

She'd drawn on a lot of classic tragic romances for the routine, a dozen different solos that she had sampled together into this piece of lost love, and she lacked _passion_?

"I don't think that's—"

Grieves looked up at her. "The showcase is a critical moment in deciding your future, Miss Trepe. Feel free to bring that routine, but don't expect jobs to be thrown your way. You're good, yes. Simply being _good_ doesn't make a career ballerina."

Quistis' lips tightened into a line. "Of course. Thank you," she said stiffly. It was the most diplomatic thing that she could think of. She sank down onto the floor near the edge of the class, her soft teal wrap skirt spreading out around her in chiffon waves, and Grieves called the next name on her list.

_xx_

After class, when she was changing, a girl with short brown hair came up to her, sidling right into Quistis' personal space like she owned the place.

"Is it true?" Selphie asked. Quistis fluffed her hair out from under the collar of her blouse, pulling out a wayward bobby pin that she had missed. She tossed it into the magnetic cup stuck to the locker door, where it landed among a dozen other pins just like it.

"Is what true?" she asked, absently, judging her reflection in the mirror hung next to the cup and tossing an errant lock of blonde hair over her shoulder.

Selphie smirked. "That you slept with Seifer Almasy an hour after he broke up with his girlfriend?"

_Bang. _Her locker door slammed shut rather harder than she'd meant to close it. The metal noise echoed through the locker room as Quistis turned and stared at her. "Who told you that?"

"Oh, no one," Selphie said casually, and reached up, picking an invisible bit of lint off of Quistis' shoulder. "You should really be careful about appearances around here, you know?"

"It's not true," Quistis told her sharply. "We're just friends."

Selphie shrugged. "Sure, you are." She walked off before Quistis could say anything else.

She was uncomfortably aware of eyes on her back as she left the locker room, and her fingers kept a stranglehold on the strap of her gym bag as she crossed the quad to the dormitory wing.

Quistis skipped lunch entirely, not willing to fight the masses for something she probably wasn't going to eat anyway, and settled for a yogurt from the fridge, taking it and a spoon to the small, gray sofa near the big bay window, one of the only redeeming features about the entire dorm living situation. Outside, it was a bright, beautiful fall day. She was sure birds were singing and people were laughing.

It didn't matter. She dug her spoon into her yogurt, and after the first bite passed her lips, she didn't want any more of it.

_No passion._

She had so much passion about dancing that she thought she would explode from it sometimes, and here Grieves was, accusing her of having _none_! It was ridiculous. It was inexcusable.

She had _passion_. She had it in spades. What the hell was _wrong _with her? And what the hell was wrong with Selphie Tilmitt? They were in _college_, for crying out loud. Not high school. The pettiness was supposed to be behind them.

_You know exactly how it looked_, a voice whispered in her ear. It didn't matter what she said. Anyone could've seen them walking toward his room, at night, after a very, very public break-up.

Quistis would have probably thought the same thing.

There was a knock on her door, a brisk two-note rap. Quistis unfolded herself from the sofa, setting aside her yogurt cup on the beat up end table that was more bare wood than blue paint.

She honestly hadn't known who to expect on the other side of the door, but it certainly wasn't Seifer Almasy, who stood there with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Selphie's mocking tone whispered in her ear: _is it true, is it true?_

"Hey," he said, with a lopsided grin. "You busy?"

She wasn't sure what to say to him. "What are you doing here?" she asked, finally.

The bluntness of her question caught him off-guard, and the smile faded. "I was going to go meet Fuj and Rai for lunch. You want to come?"

Quistis shook her head. "I'm not… really hungry."

"Oh." Clearly, this had not been the reaction Seifer had been expecting. She didn't know what he was expecting. Did it matter? "Okay. No big deal."

"Sorry," she added. "I'm just—not really in the mood to deal with people right now." Or him. Or anyone he knew.

He shrugged. "It's cool. Something wrong?"

She sighed. "It's nothing."

_Liar. _

He looked at her curiously. "Alright."

Did he know? It didn't seem like it. Quistis offered up a half-hearted smile. "Thanks, though. See you in class?"

Seifer nodded. "Yeah." He started off, but turned back around at the last second, before she'd shut the door. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, really."

He studied her, his eyes so bright and green and hard to meet. "Okay," he said, finally. "See you."

She closed the door, leaned back against it, and sighed.

_xx_

Raijin high-fived him before Seifer had even set his tray down on the table, leaving Seifer's palm stinging.

Seifer pulled out the chair and sat down. "Nice to see you, too, Rai."

"So, congratulations, dude," Raijin said enthusiastically. "Well played."

Across the table, Fujin scoffed, stirring her iced tea around with a straw. "Too soon," she scolded him. Seifer raised an eyebrow at her, unscrewing the lid on his bottle of water.

"What the hell are you guys talking about?"

Raijin grinned. "I heard you hooked up with that dance chick over the weekend. Way to get back on the horse, dude."

Seifer choked on his mouthful of water, coughing hard. "Wait. _What_?"

"You and Quistis," Fujin clarified. Her gaze was direct, her good eye laser-focused on his face. "Not true?"

"No, it's definitely not!" Not that he would be _against _the idea, but— holy shit, that explained why Quistis was so pissed off at him. He set the plastic bottle back on his tray and eyed his friends. "Who told you that?"

Raijin shrugged. "Irvine, dude. He said that's what Selphie told him."

_Tilmitt_. It always came back to Selphie Tilmitt. And Seifer Almasy would have been lying if he said he was surprised by this development.

Behind him, there was a burst of female laughter; when he glanced over his shoulder, Rinoa and her group were sitting across the way. He caught her gaze. She looked away. Beside her, Selphie gave him a very rude gesture. Seifer rolled his eyes and pushed his chair back away from the table, the legs scraping against the tile floor.

He stood, crossing the caf to the other table, pushing between two of Rinoa's minions that blocked his path. Whether out of reflex than intimidation, they parted.

He put his hands on the table, leaning down so that his face was only a foot away from Rinoa's. "What the _hell_ are you trying to pull?" he demanded.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said flatly.

"She doesn't want to talk to you, Alm -_ass_-y," Selphie told him, stretching out his name. "So go back to your little misfits club over there and leave us alone."

"Go to hell, Tilmitt," he snapped, not taking his gaze off of Rinoa. "This is such petty _bullshit_, Rin. I thought you were better than this."

"Fuck you," she spat, looking away from him.

"You leave her the hell alone," he said, his voice quiet, dangerous. "I mean it, Rin."

She tossed her hair over her shoulder, streaks of bleached blonde mixed in with the black cascading back through the air like a damn shampoo ad. "Oh? So protective for someone who's 'just a friend.' I'm jealous."

Seifer pushed himself back away from the table, chuckling.

"What's so funny?" Rinoa demanded, her dark eyes flashing with hurt and anger and a million things he couldn't nor wanted to name.

"You've always had some nerve," he said. "That's what I liked about you."

He turned and walked away.

_xx_

It was Xu who answered the door at the second knock. "Piss off," she said by way of greeting. "She doesn't want to talk to you."

Quistis sighed, and rubbed her eyes, sitting up on the sofa. "It's fine. Let him in," she called. God, she was so _tired_. The day had been too long, and she still had her evening classes before she could even think about sleeping.

"Can I kick him in the balls first?"

"No. You can't."

"If he makes you cry, I'm going to, okay?" Xu planted herself between the two of them, effectively blocking Seifer's path into their dorm. Her head came up to the middle of his chest, and Quistis could tell by the way her friend's shoulders were set that she was giving Seifer one of her death glares.

"Fine, okay, just… let him in, alright?"

Xu stepped aside. "I'll be in my room. _Listening_." She left, shutting the door firmly behind her.

Seifer stood awkwardly in the doorway. "She seems nice."

Quistis laughed, just a little. "Sorry."

He stuck his hands in his pockets; there was only one reason why he would be back so soon. He'd found out. "Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"It doesn't matter, Seifer. It's not a huge deal." She slid to the far end of the sofa, and waved him further in. He sat in the spot her legs had vacated, sprawling out, his knee coming to rest scant inches from hers. The denim of his jeans was well-worn, starting to come apart across the joint.

She resisted the urge to reach out and touch the fabric, a nervous habit to fiddle with things that she'd never been quite able to curtail. Quistis curled her fingers against the thin wool of her skirt.

Neither of them quite knew what to say, it seemed, and Seifer finally opened his mouth.

"You weren't… upset or anything by it, were you?" he asked finally, gesturing to the box of tissues on the floor between their feet.

Quistis blushed. "No. I managed to dump a cup of tea earlier." The tears were few, and mostly when she was trying to explain her frustration with Instructor Grieves to Xu, but she wasn't going to tell him that.

"Oh," he said, and there was relief in his voice. "I'm glad."

Her cell phone chimed, and Quistis glanced at it.

_Can I kick him yet? _

"No," she called, and she could hear Xu swear from behind her closed door. "Come on," she said quietly. "We have to get to class, anyway."

As she stood, her ankle gave a faint twinge of pain. She ignored it.


	5. closing walls and ticking clocks

_five. _

"Miss Trepe, could you come here for a moment?" Instructor Grieves' voice echoed out into the empty hall later the next evening. Perfect. Just what she needed. She'd been lucky to avoid anymore scathing critique during the three-hour class that morning; she didn't think she could deal with any more of Grieves' "advice."

Quistis sighed, stopped, and made the requisite right turn into the office. Instructor Grieves was sitting at her desk, writing something on a sheaf of legal paper. "Yes?"

The older woman didn't look up. "Sit down, Miss Trepe."

Quistis set her small duffel on the floor and took a seat in the chair on the other side of Grieves' desk. Her instructor's office was small, sparse, decorated with elegantly framed photos of dancers caught in beautiful movement, and a large poster was hung behind Grieves' desk, an advertisement of what had to be _Swan Lake_. The type on the poster was in Estharian, but the ballerina's costume was the giveaway, her delicate, elfin face done in sharp contours of white makeup, her hair capped in feathers.

Quistis looked away from the poster.

"Miss Trepe," Grieves began, setting down her pen, "I wanted to talk to you about your performance in class yesterday."

Of course. Because Grieves would certainly not appreciate being talked back to by some _student. _"I appreciate your criticism," Quistis said hurriedly. "I didn't mean to question—"

Grieves shook her head. "That wasn't what I wanted to say. Now, you are aware of how select my class is, yes?"

Quistis nodded.

"I saw you over the summer, in the Deling internship," Grieves continued. "I make it a point to watch their performances every year, to ensure that the quality of the students I admit is kept to a… rigorous standard."

She nodded again.

"I don't say this easily, Miss Trepe, but I feel like you need to hear it. You impressed me. I'd heard things through the proverbial grapevine from other instructors, ones you took classes with in Deling City. I hadn't expected—" Grieves slipped off her thin glasses, folding the earpieces in carefully, and set them on her desk, centering them on top of the legal pad she had been writing on. "Needless to say, when you showed up in my class in September, I was expecting a much better quality of work from you."

Quistis sat, her hands folded in her lap, Grieves' words landing on her like shrapnel from a bomb blast. "I'm sorry to have disappointed you."

Grieves waved her off. "Your talent is _there_, Quistis. I know what happened to you in July was a terrifying thing. I've been there. Every dancer worth their salt has been there. But you have a tremendous gift; don't hold back. Don't be so _afraid_."

She couldn't speak for a second—Grieves had seen _that _performance. The last one. The one that left her paralyzed with fear that she would never be able to walk again, much less dance, even after the doctor had pronounced it merely a sprain and that she would be back on her feet in no time. And she had been. Just… not the same dancer she had been.

She thought she'd gotten _over _it, this safe mode that she had retreated into. But that show was going to haunt her forever, apparently.

"I—"

Grieves looked at her, the instructor's dark eyes serious. "I'm holding an exhibition at the end of the month, Miss Trepe, to showcase some of the top students in the class. I would like you to be in it."

"But, the showcase…" Quistis began. "I have so much work to do." _You just said I disappointed you. That I wasn't good enough. _

Grieves sat back in her chair. "The showcase isn't until January. Besides, I only want you to perform a passage you already know, and your preparatory time won't be as exhaustive."

Quistis didn't even want to ask the question, but she did, and the words hung heavy in the air between them, a grenade waiting to blow.

Grieves smiled, a shark's grin. "Odile's _pas de deux_. You'll dance with Squall Leonhart, from the senior class. He's quite skilled."

_-black lace and feathers and the curtain falling. _

"I can't…"

"You can. You're the only person I've seen this semester who has the strength to pull it off. If you do this, I think it will go a long way toward helping you with your showcase piece."

Or it would put her in the hospital again.

"Of course," Grieves continued, "we could always reconsider your placement in this university, if you don't think you're capable."

She barely felt her head move, one brief, concise nod. There were no words. She couldn't find any to say. The threat wrapped around her chest and squeezed.

"Good. I'll need you to stop by the photography studio in the morning; they're expecting you, and the handbills have to go to the printers in the afternoon if I want to have them in time." Grieves picked up her glasses and put them back on her face, and glanced back up at Quistis, still sitting motionless in the chair. "Have a nice evening, Miss Trepe."

Quistis got up stiffly out of the chair.

_xx_

The posters went up practically overnight, covering every spare surface of BCA until it was about the only ad he was aware of, this constant pop art remake of a scene from a children's fairy tale movie, a prince and princess done in blues and whites. The words _Balamb Winter Formal_ were stenciled across the top; a line of text letting him know that tickets were on sale in the caf and that formal dress was required skirted across the bottom of the page. Live music would be provided.

Seifer glanced at the date on the poster stuck to the door of Shang's classroom, and went inside.

Quistis was already in the classroom, her head bent over a stack of papers. She didn't look up when he sat down next to her, her attention absorbed in whatever she was reading.

Seifer dropped his bag onto the floor. She jumped, startled by the sudden noise so close to her.

"Hey," he said.

Quistis sighed and picked up the stack of papers, straightening them with a precise tap of their edges on the desk. "Hi."

"What's that?" he asked, nodding his head at the stack.

"Nothing important. Something Instructor Grieves asked me to do." Her tone was exhausted, like she hadn't slept at all and was running on nothing but sheer force of will.

He caught a glimpse of the words _Rehearsal Schedule_ on the top sheet, but Instructor Shang walked into the room with his arms full of test papers, and commanded that there be absolute silence for the next sixty minutes.

_Slut_, someone hissed from behind them. Seifer twisted around in his chair, glaring up into the rest of the class. But no one looked guilty, and when he turned back around, it was like Quistis hadn't even heard it, or if she did, she didn't care.

God, he was going to murder Selphie the next time he saw her. This was getting out of control. Someone passed the sheaf of test papers up to his row; he took one and passed it to Quistis, who passed it on. The rest of the class was in total silence.

When class was over, he grabbed her hand before she could leave. "You want to go get dinner with me?" he asked. Her palm was warm and soft; he wrapped his fingers around hers, gently. Quistis raised an eyebrow at him, but didn't withdraw her hand.

"Um. Sure."

They walked down toward the classroom exit, and he held the door for her. Quistis slipped under his arm and out into the noisy hallway. Her hair cascaded down her back in a shimmering waterfall of gold—he had to stick his hands in his pockets to keep himself from touching it.

_xx_

He asked her casually, ten minutes after they'd sat down at one of the few empty tables in the caf.

"Seriously?" she asked.

Seifer chuckled. "Seriously."

"But _why_?"

"Because," he said. "I think we'd have fun together."

She jabbed her fork into a stalk of broccoli. "Do you really think it's a good idea? Aren't people talking enough?"

Seifer shrugged. "None of it's true. What does it matter? You said yourself that you didn't care."

"I don't. It's just—"

"It's _just _a dance, Quistis. It's not a big deal. If you don't want to go, that's fine." He jabbed a fry into a puddle of ketchup and popped it in his mouth, trying to project an aura of total composure.

She smiled a little. "You've got some ketchup right here," she pointed, tapping the corner of her mouth.

He wiped at the spot with a napkin. "Better?"

"Much." She sat back in her chair, an oddly pleased expression on her face. "And I want to go."

"Really?"

Quistis nodded, her hair falling in her face. She tucked the errant strand back behind her ear; he couldn't take his _eyes _off of her. What the hell had gotten into him? Rinoa had dumped him barely a week ago, and already Quistis had slipped into the space his ex-girlfriend had once occupied.

_Just friends_, his brain reminded him.

He told his brain to go to hell. A huge grin spread across his face without his permission; he did nothing to quell it. "Awesome. I'll get the tickets, and-"

A lipstick-red bag dropped onto the table between them with a loud thud.

"Oh, _sorry, _am I interrupting something?" Rinoa asked, her tone haughty. Fantastic. That was exactly what he needed today.

"What do you want?" he asked, wearily.

She perched on the edge of the table, her short denim skirt revealing more of her red-lace tights than was probably entirely publicly decent, leaning back and obscuring his view of Quistis. "I need that CD we made over the summer."

"Don't you already have a copy?"

She shrugged. "I lost it. I need another one for class."

"Fine. Whatever. I'll burn you another one."

A cell phone rang, a classical melody piping out of Quistis' bag. She took it out, looked at the display, and said, "I'll be right back." She was gone before Seifer could say anything.

Rinoa watched him watching her go. "I don't know what you see in that little mouse. Dancers were never your type. Too thin. Too… _delicate._"

Seifer leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "I don't think I really have to explain myself to you."

Rinoa laughed, a throaty, velvety sound, and hopped off the table. "Oh, honey, she's just some second-rate ballerina; you're crippling yourself by being with her. I told you that I forgive you, remember?"

He rolled his eyes. Why the hell was Rinoa always like this? From zero to nuclear in six seconds. It was astounding. "Yeah," he agreed. "For something I never _did_. How the hell am I supposed to be with you? You're like a different person every five minutes—you love me, you hate me, you drop me in front of a crowd of people and expect to pick me back up five minutes later. And now you're trying to ruin the life of some girl you've never even _met_, just because you think she's a threat to you."

For a second, she didn't speak. "I told Selphie those things in confidence. What she blabs to other people is her business."

"Yeah, well, now shit's gotten out of hand."

"Bring that CD by tonight," she said, finally, and ran her fingers along the back of his neck as she left, her touch sending a tiny jolt down his spine, a reflex of his traitorous body. "I'll be waiting."

She was gone before Quistis slipped back into her seat. "What was that all about?"

"Nothing. She's insane." Seifer sighed, raking his hand back through his hair in annoyance. It was amazing how two minutes could make his entire mood do a one-eighty. It had to be something in Rinoa's perfume, a venomous toxin that pissed everyone off who happened to interact with her. "Who was that?" he asked, nodding toward the phone in her hand.

"Oh, um, Instructor Grieves asked me to perform in a showcase she's holding at the end of the month. I'm supposed to do this dance with a senior, and he just told me he's free to rehearse tonight. So…"

"Can I come?" Seifer asked abruptly. He could avoid Rinoa entirely. It was the perfect solution.

"To the showcase?"

"No, tonight. I could use the distraction." He watched her expression. "If it's not weird or anything, I mean."

She shrugged, zipping her purse. "Kind of, but I don't mind. You might be bored, though."

He shrugged. "I'll bring a book."

"Okay, then. I'll meet you at the studio at… seven?"

"Cool," he said. "It's a date."

She blushed, and smiled.


	6. my charade is the event of the season

_six. _

"Dude, Rinoa's gonna be _pissed_ if she finds out you're taking Quistis to that dance," Raijin commented. There was a violent crash as the car he was attempting to drive slammed into the wall. He swore and thumbed the A button repeatedly, backing the car up and putting it back on the track.

Seifer jerked his controller to the left, out of pure reflex, trying to evade his roommate's terrible driving. "You know, contrary to popular belief, I don't actually _care_ what she thinks." He narrowly evaded the other car, and powered forward.

Raijin swore. "Yeah, but still— what if she causes more shit for Quistis?"

"Pretty sure that since _she _dumped _me_, she doesn't really get a say in what happens afterward." His car careened around the last hairpin turn, and raced across the finish line. Seifer whooped.

Raijin tossed his controller down on the floor. "Fuj said that Selphie was talking shit about Quistis during class."

Seifer groaned. "It's like we're in fucking _high school_," he said. "Tilmitt needs to grow up."

"I'm just sayin', ya know?"

His phone buzzed; Seifer picked it up off of the beat up coffee table and looked at it. "Speak of the devil," he said, and answered. "What?"

"Where are you? I need that CD," Rinoa said, her voice exasperated, hollow through the connection. Maybe something was wrong with her phone.

"I'm kind of busy right now," he told her. Her sigh was dramatic; he rolled his eyes.

"Look, you _know_ I wouldn't have called unless it was really, really important," she snapped. "I need it for my morning class. I can't fail this project."

"Fine," he said. "I'll be over in a few minutes."

Rinoa hung up on him. Seifer looked at the clock on his phone and swore; he should have left twenty minutes ago. _Shit. _"Gotta run," he said. "See you."

A few minutes later, he rapped three times on Rinoa's door. There was no answer for a moment; he was trying to figure out how to shove the disc under her door when it opened abruptly. Rinoa stood there in her pajamas, her face free of makeup and her hair scraped back into a messy ponytail. She looked younger, without her eyeliner and mascara and perfectly tousled just-woke-up hair that took her an hour to achieve (he knew from experience.) She looked _sad_.

Some part of him wanted to fold her into his arms and tell her that it was going to be okay. He held out the case, the original one; there hadn't been enough time to burn a new copy of it. "Keep it," he told her. "I don't want it back."

"Seifer—" she began, stepping toward him, and when she came out into the light of the hall, her eyes were red-rimmed. She _had _been crying. He felt like an asshole.

_You're not the bad guy here, _he reminded himself.

Seifer held the case out a little bit closer to her. "Do you want it or not?"

Rinoa took it. "Thanks," she said. Her voice was quiet.

_Did you love her?_

_I don't know. Maybe._

"Yeah, whatever." He looked away, trying not to wonder how long she had been holed up in her room like this. He failed. Seifer turned to go.

Her hand wrapped around his wrist; he looked back at her. "What?"

She reached for him, her fingers fisting into the soft fabric of his sweater, and she was _crying_ into his chest, her shoulders shaking. Reflexively, his hands came up around her, gingerly rubbing soft circles on her back. A couple of students walked down the dorm halls, looking at them curiously. He ignored them.

"Hey," he said awkwardly. "It's okay."

She shook her head. "_Please_," she said, so quietly that he might have imagined it. She rose on her toes, and her lips grazed his jaw, warm and soft.

Seifer let go, and stepped back.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I already told you, no. I had fun, Rin. Really. But-"

She looked up at him with tear-stained cheeks. "But you don't love me anymore. You like _her_." The word came out dripping with venom.

He sighed. "This isn't about anyone but us, Rin. We fucked it up, and it sucks it has to be like this, but-"

Her slap stung. Seifer stared at her.

"Don't give me some excuse," Rinoa said bitterly, wiping at her eyes. "Just… go. Go away, okay? I give up. It's over. Whatever." She looked like she was about to burst into tears again at any second.

He'd been trying to get away from her for _days_. Seifer turned, and glanced back at her.

"You gonna be okay?"

She shrugged. "Does it matter?"

Maybe he should have felt guilty, leaving her like that, but instead there was only relief.

_You like _her_. _

Shit, he didn't know. Seifer sighed, gingerly touching his face where her palm had so solidly landed. When the hell had girls gotten so _complicated_?

Absently, he took the long indoor route to the practice wing, circling the fountain in hopes that maybe the extra time would allow him to clear his head.

Instead, it just gave him more time to think. How pissed was Quistis going to be when he showed up—Seifer glanced at his phone, the battery nearly dead—almost an hour late? Or would she even notice, so busy with her rehearsal with some stranger?

There weren't any new messages, no _where are you_ texts that Rin had been so fond of sending when he was three seconds away and maybe only a minute late.

The door to one of the studios was ajar, and, in an eerie parallel to the first time he'd seen her, a tinkling instrumental piece piped out into the halls. He stopped in the doorway.

Inside, Quistis danced, balanced on her toes, turning and leaping and reaching for a stranger with dark hair, who grabbed her waist and lifted her high above his head, like it was no effort and Quistis was made of air.

Seifer crossed his arms, leaning against the door frame, watching her move. The expression on her face was solemn, serious; her peach leotard glinted in the bright lights overhead, a black skirt of some shimmering stuff flowing around her hips. He hadn't realized just how _long_ her legs were.

_xx_

Squall Leonhart was exceptional, not anything like what she had expected. He lifted her like she weighed nothing, balancing her above his head and sweeping her back down to the ground.

"Okay," Quistis said, relaxing back on the soles of her feet. "Do you want to try the lift again?"

He nodded, his expression serious, his dark hair falling into his eyes. "Sure."

Quistis glanced at the clock on the wall. 8:10. Where _was_ he?

Squall looked over her shoulder. "Private rehearsal," he called, and Quistis turned. There Seifer was, leaning in the doorway, his arms crossed.

_It's a date._

At this point, she'd expected him not to show up at all.

"Actually… do you mind if we take a break?" she asked. Squall shrugged.

"I probably should head out anyway," he said. "I have an eight a.m."

"Alright."

He crossed the room to his pile of stuff. "Are you free Monday?"

She nodded. "My classes end at five."

"Same time?" He leaned against the wall, switching his black dance shoes out with a pair of beat-up sneakers. "I don't have a morning class, so we can work later."

"Sounds good."

Squall left. Quistis studied her reflection in the wall of mirrors; reflexively, she moved through the last few steps she'd tried, watching her the position of her feet, how she held her arms. She relaxed her fingers, raised her chin. Her reflection showed an improvement in the entire stance.

Seifer walked into the room, his attitude perfectly cavalier. "Hey," he said. "Sorry I'm late."

Quistis shrugged gracefully; her reflection mimicked the gesture. "I was beginning to worry."

"I got held up with something."

_Rinoa_? She held her tongue.

It didn't matter. He was over her. He'd made that perfectly clear. But still—Quistis couldn't quite shake the image of Rinoa running her fingers along the back of his neck, like he was her _property_, or something, the expression on her face vicious as she looked at Quistis from across the cafeteria.

She'd waited until Rinoa had walked away before she had gone back to the table. Quistis had never wanted to hit someone as badly as she'd wanted to hit the other girl right then.

Quistis stretched, balancing on her left leg and drawing her right up over her head, her hands loosely grasped around her ankle. She could feel his eyes on her.

"I'm sorry," he said. It sounded genuine.

"It's fine." She repeated the stretch with her left leg; she didn't hold it as long. Seifer watched her, his expression unreadable in the mirror. She relaxed the stretch and turned to face him. "I'm sorry you missed the rehearsal."

"I saw that last bit. Nice work."

"It's no big deal." Quistis crossed the room and pressed the stop icon on her phone, unplugging the portable speaker from the headphone jack. The silence was abrupt. She wound the speaker cord up, and stuffed both items into her purse. "Squall's a very good dancer."

"You're better."

She huffed. "Not really. He's going to be in the Estharian Royal Ballet when he graduates. I'll be lucky to get out of here with a degree." She didn't try to hide the jealousy in her voice. Squall Leonhart would have a future that she couldn't even _begin _to hope for. She would be lucky if a local troupe took her in out of pity.

_We'll have to reevaluate your standing at this university. _Grieves had contacts in every major company all over the world. Doors could be shut before Quistis was even aware that they were _open _to her.

She was so _tired _of being safe, of being scared, and now she was shoved out onto this ledge without a safety net, and it was going to cost her everything she had worked so hard for. She reached down, pulling at the knots in the ribbons of her shoes, unlacing them.

Seifer didn't say anything. His sneakers were covered in idle ink sketches that disappeared under the frayed cuff of his dark jeans. It was crazy, how she was so hyper-aware of him after only a little while—she'd never even noticed him during the past couple of years. He'd just shown up, with his guitar and his beautiful voice and his stupid ex-girlfriend-

She thought he might be able to hear how much faster her heart beat when he was near, how dizzy his wild charisma made her, how many times she'd been sitting at her computer, or in class, or simply dancing, and his face had floated into her mind, unbidden.

She'd wondered so often what it would be like to kiss him.

"Can I ask you something?"

He shrugged. "Sure."

"You and Rinoa are _really _over, right?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"So… you're not going to get back together with her or anything?"

"No."

"Okay." She slipped on a pair of flats and stood. "I was just wondering."

Seifer met her gaze. "It's a fair question," he said. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I think—" She didn't know how to say this so it wouldn't come out sounding absolutely ridiculous; she decided it didn't matter. Either way, she was going to sound insane. "I think you should kiss me."

"Seriously?"

She nodded, and she could not meet his eyes. Her gaze instead fell on his rust-colored sweater, tracing the pattern in the thick cable knit. Inside, she felt like she would explode from the anticipation, the _wanting _of this, the fear of what would happen if he said no.

She didn't care what the rumors said about her—people in general could go to hell. She wouldn't see most of them ever again after next year. Let them talk.

His fingers touched her chin, much more gently than she had anticipated, drawing her face up, and he was so tall, he still had to lean in a little even when she rose up on her toes.

Her eyes closed.

_xx_

When he kissed her, it felt like a crime.


End file.
